Talk:Seminar III

1955-1956 (362 pp.)-SEMINAIRE III: LES PSYCHOSES (SEMINAR III: PSYCHOSES)-1981

ow is it possible to understand psychosis and distinguish it from neurosi;.z] ~y means of the foreclosure of a fundamental signifier, the Name-of-the- . Fath~\!his term, which Lacan had been looking for since 1954 (27) in order. to translate Freud's Venverfung (repudiation) and which will be used beyond. the Lacanian circles, appeared for the first time at the very end of this seminar ,. that reexamines the questions raised in 1932 J.:). By psychosis Lacan means, paranoia. So, what about paranoia? By paranoia Lacan means the case of _ Schreber, a case that is exemplary enough to offer the key to human be- • coming. Paradoxically, it is on texts that the theory is constructed here�Schreber's Memoires, Freud's interpretation, Ida Macalpine's-even if ex�amples borrowed from the cases that Lacan presented at Sainte-Anne recall clinical reality. The foreclosed signifier reappears in the Real under the for of hallucinated voices. The link with the case of the Wolfman (Freud), where 1 hallucination is visual-the hallucination of the cut finger referring to the penis-, is not established, except through the idea that the father is the ring holding together the mother, the child, and the phallus.

To return to the "pure Freudian position" is "to investigate more in depth the metaphysics of such a discovery" that is "entirely inscribed in man's re�lation to the symbolic." In psychosis, it is not a matter of the projection outside of a bodily "primitive inside," but of "a body of foreclosed signi�fiers." Thus, linguistics is very present here: from this point of view, many sessions in this seminar shed light on difficult writings such as La Lettre volee (31) or L'!nstance de la leltre (35). The Saussurian opposition between sig�nifier and signified leads to the radical separation of the two chains, until they are tied through anchoring points [points de capiton. a term borrowed from upholstery). Only one of these points is explained, the Father. With Jakobson and his article on aphasia, Les Aphasies. metaphor and metonymy reorganize mental pathology; the famous analysis of Boot endormi (Hugo) I allows Lacan to create the notion of paternal metaphor whose absence would d. In English in the original. 180 00881 ER mcan psychosis. Finally. Benvcniste's classification of pronouns (I/You/He) providcs thc opportunity for brilliant claborations on thc sentence, "You are thc one who will follow mc" ITu es celui qui me suivra(s)). a sentence that defincs thc founding word: that of sworn Faith situated in the Other. The Othcr, clcarly opposed to the imaginary other, seems to be "discourse itself." It is a beneficial place "where the I who speaks is constituted in relation with thc one who hcars" and, at the same time, an evil place since "the neurotic inhabits language; the psychotic is inhabited, possessed by the language" that persecutcs him. The whole destiny of man is decided during the Oedipus complex whose laws are the laws of language-however, everything is al�rcady decided in archaic times ("the fundamental signifier is a myth"). To explain psychosis by the absence of a primordial symbolization does not an�swer two questions, even with the help of the Schbna L. called the magical square. Why this absence and how to remedy to it? Many of the disciples' clinical discourses concerning the psychotic's mother (and more rarely the father) focus on this absence, a flaw in Lacan's elaboration. "It is not enough to want to be mad to become mad," indeed, but how does one become mad without maybe "wanting" to? The analysis of Schreber reveals something else: the question of procrea�tion, "in its cssential root," cscapes the symbolic web that includes neither creation ("being is born of another being") nor death. The absence of sym�bolization of the woman's sex organ as such (for "lack of material") and the absolute primacy of the phallus introduce a quasi-irreparable dissymmetry. This seminar, which goes back to the cas Dora (20) and presages the inter�vention on La Sexualite feminine (45), states that the feminine position is "problematic and, up to a certain point. cannot be assimilated." However. women are actually not the only ones concerned since the Real. which is so often said to be impossible in Lacan's works, is also in question here. [ This volume also includes the lecture given by Lacan, in Professor Delay's presence. for the centenary of Freud's birth: Freud dans Ie siecle (Freud in the century), where he explains what he meant by the return to Freud.

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Taking us into and beyond the realm of Freudian psychoanalysis, Lacan examines the psychoses' inescapable connection to the symbolic process through which signifier is joined with signified.

Lacan deftly navigates the ontological levels of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real to explain psychosis as "foreclosure," or rejection of the primordial signifier.

Then, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Lacan discusses the implications for treatment.

In these lectures on the psychoses, Lacan's renowned theory of metaphor and metonymy, along with the concept of the "quilting point," appears for the first time.

Short Summary

Only the first half of the seminar is explicitly concerned with questions of psychosis and psychotic phenomenon.

The second half looks at hysteria, the relationship between the signifier and the signified and finally issues of metaphor and metonymy.

The seminar also contains early formulations of the Name-of-the-Father and the phallus.

Sometimes controversial, invariably fascinating, Lacan's psycholinguistic approach to analysis of the psychoses is seen here in virtually unmediated form.

Psychosis

'Psychosis is one of three clinical structures.

The other two are neurosis and perversion.

Each structure is distinguished by a different operation: neurosis by the operation of repression, perversion by the operation of disavowal, and psychosis by the operation of foreclosure.

By way of foreclosure of the signifier of the Name-of-the-Father it is possible to understand psychosis and distinguish it from neurosis.

Foreclosure

Foreclosure corresponds to Lacan's translation of Verwerfung (repudiaton).

The Name-of-the-Father is not integrated in the symbolic order of the psychotic, it is foreclosed: a hole is left in the symbolic chain.

In psychosis "the unconscious is present but not functioning."

The psychotic structure results from a malfunction of the Oedipus complex, a lack in the paternal function: the paternal function is reduced to the image of the father (the symbolic reduced to the imaginary).

Symbolic Order

Two conditions are required for psychosis to emerge:

1. the subject has a psychotic structure (inheritance) and
2. the Name-of-the-Father is called into symbolic opposition to the subject.

When both conditions are fulfilled, psychosis is actualized; the latent psychosis becomes manifest in hallucinations and/or delusions.

For Lacan psychosis includes paranoia (Papin sisters), so he bases his arguments on the Schreber case (as related by Freud).

He argues that Schreber's psychosis was activated by both his failure to produce a child and his election to an important position in the judiciary.

These experiences confronted him with the question of paternity in the real- called the Name-of-the-Father into symbolic opposition with the subject.

The Name of the Father is the fundamental signifier which permits signification to proceed normally.

It both confers identity on the subject (naming and positioning it within the symbolic order) and signifies the Oedipical prohibition.

When foreclosed, it is not included in the symbolic order.

Lacan rejects the approach of limiting the analysis of psychosis to the imaginary: "nothing is to be expected from the way psychosis is explored at the level of the imaginary, since the imaginary mechanism is what gives psychotic alienation its form, but not its dynamics."

Only by focusing on the symbolic are we able to point to the fundamental determining element of psychosis: the hole in the symbolic order caused by foreclosure and the consequent imprisonment of the psychotic subject in the imaginary.

"The importance given to language phenomena in psychosis is for us the most fruitful lesson of all."

Point de Caption

The Saussurian opposition between signifier and signified leads to the radical separation of the two chains, until they are tied through anchoring points, points de caption.

These are points at which "signifier and signified are knotted together."

Despite the continual slippage of the signified under the signifier, there are nevertheless in the neurotic subject certain points of attachment between signifier and signified where the slippage is temporarily halted.

A certain number of these points "are necessary for a person to be called normal" and "when they are not established or when they give way" the result is psychosis.

In the psychotic experience "the signifier and the signified present themselves in a completely divided form."

Language

Thus the phenomena most notable in psychosis are disorders of language: the presence of such disorders is a necessary condition for its diagnosis: holophrases and the extensive use of neologisms (new words or already existing ones which the psychotic redefines).

These language disorders are due to the psychotic's lack of a sufficient number of anchoring points: the psychotic experience is characterized by a constant slippage of the signifier under the signified, which is a disaster for signification.

Later, Lacan will posit that there is a continual "cascade of reshapings of the signifier from which the increasing disaster of the imaginary proceeds, until the level is reached at which signifier and signified are stabilized in the delusional metaphor."

Thus "the nucleus of psychosis has to be linked to a rapport between the subject and the signifier in its most formal dimension, in its dimension as pure signifier. If the neurotic inhabits language, the psychotic is inhabited, possessed by language."

"On a question preliminary to any possible treatment of psychosis" (‘’Écrits: A Selection’’) is a text written in 1958 and contemporary with ‘’Les formations de l'inconscient’’; it is a synthesis of ‘’Les psychoses’’ and focuses mainly on the term foreclosure, ‘’forclusion’’, German ‘’Verwerfung’’.

In the Schema L "...the condition of the subject S (neurosis or psychosis) is dependent on what is being unfolded in the Other O. What is being unfolded is articulated like a discourse (the unconscious is the discourse of the Other)."

In the Schema R: "...I as the ego-ideal, M as the signifier of the primordial object, and F as the position in O of the Name-of-the-Father. One can see how the homological fastening of the signification of S under the signifier of the phallus may affect the support of the field of reality delimited by the quadrangle MieI. The two other summits, e and i, represent the two imaginary terms of the narcissistic rapport, the ego and the specular image."

This schema articulates the imaginary triad with the symbolic triad, both of which cut the quadrangle of reality.

The term 'reality' is ambiguous in that it designates both our rapport to the world and our rapport to the Real as inaccessible.

Schema R is elaborated in terms of a particular form of psychosis (Schreber). Later, ‘’Kant avec Sade’’ (1962) will develop the perverse version as Lacan is concerned with creating the formal bases for his theory before addressing the problems of the treatment of psychosis.

The preliminary question seems to be the one of the Other, whose presence commands everything else.

It is the place from which the subject is confronted with the question of its existence (sexuation and death).

What is the Other? Is it the unconscious where "it speaks?"

Is it the place of memory that conditions the indestructibility of certain desires?

Is it the place where the signifier of signifiers is the phallus?

Is it the place symbolized by the Name-of-the-Father since the Oedipus complex is consubstantial with the unconscious?

When the paternal metaphor does not allow the subject to evoke the signification of the phallus, when the response to the call of the Name-of-the-Father is a lack of the signifier itself, then it is a case of psychosis.

"This applies to the metaphor of the Name-of-the-Father, that is, the metaphor that puts this Name in the place that was first symbolized by the operation of the mother's absence."

It designates the metaphorical, substitutive, character of the Oedipus complex.

It is the fundamental metaphor on which all signification depends: thus all signification is phallic.

If the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed (psychosis), there can be no paternal metaphor and no phallic signification.

Bibliography

• Le Séminaire. Livre III. Les psychoses, 1955-56. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1981 [The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993].

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